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Madames et messieurs, bienvenue a France. It is August 1914, less than a month since the world went mad, Europe was plunged into war, and it fell to you to fight it. This is us. (If you don't know what's going on here, here's the observer thread.)  IF YOU ARE PLAYING ON THE GERMAN SIDE, TURN BACK NOW AND GO NO FURTHER This is the French IV Corps, as it formed up for inspection on the parade ground last week.  Here is its order of battle; we need a corps commander, two division commanders, and a whole crap-ton of brigade commanders. quote:IV Corps The Corps Commander gives orders to the two divisional commanders; they may not give orders to brigade commanders or individual companies. Each divisional commander reports to the Corps Commander and gives orders to the brigade commanders under them; they may not directly order any companies to move and may not give orders to brigades attached to the other division. Brigade commanders do get to give orders to companies and move chits around the battlefield, at the cost of being at the bottom of the chain of command. Each division's cavalry, engineers, and artillery must be assigned by the Divisional Commander to a subordinate brigade, or it will remain off the board in divisional reserve until attached. The only chit that Divisional Commanders may directly move is their own HQ, of which more later. Likewise, the two reserve brigades and the cavalry brigade must be attached to a Division by the Corps Commander before it can join the battle; and the poo poo-ton of Corps artillery and the Corps engineer must be attached to a brigade by the Corps Commander. Divisional and Corps commanders need not commit all their assets immediately and may, if they want, keep units off the board, safe in reserve, and introduce them after the start of the battle. What the hell do we do now? First, sort out who will be the Corps Commander (I recall forums poster my dad expressing active interest in this) and who will command the two divisions; everyone else will be either brigade commanders or non-participating staff officers. Once we have a corps commander confirmed in post, the Army Commander will send him his orders and you can start planning the battle; I'll also be making a long post later on how exactly one gives orders. (There is an extensive house rule involved.) Where's the BEF? If the battle goes badly for you, Sir John French might be convinced to send a few units to your aid. Or maybe not. Who can say what the perfidious English will choose to do? Perhaps they might show up in force later in 1914. Can I see the map again? Sure.  I'll include a full-size map once the Army Commander has his orders. (For reference, we're playing to Grey's scale: 40 pixels to the inch, chits are 50px by 50px, each "inch" represents 80 yards of ground, and the map is 4500px by 3000px, which is slightly more than five miles wide.) Merci, bonne chance, and Vive la France.
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Feb 8, 2017 22:16
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A COLLECTION OF poo poo THAT YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW How to Play Giving Orders Time, Movement, and Spotting Objectives Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 22:17
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List of updates PENDING Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 22:17
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GIVING ORDERS (or, How Do I Make Things Happen?) Right then. Let's talk about orders, how they're going to work, and how to make sure I know what your orders mean. This is how you get your blokes to move around, so pay attention, 007. The first thing of all that I want to say is that while this is a rules-heavy grognard wargame, please don't be intimidated by that. Other players can help you understand enough rules to give effective orders if you're a brigade commander. Alternatively, you could opt for Division or Corps command and not be charged with shuffling chits around!This advice is being given in identical form to both sides. CORPS COMMANDER: PRE-BATTLE Here is what you must do according to the rules, before the battle. You must decide who, if anyone, is going to get those big howitzers and engineers (we'll talk about engineers and some combat rules later), and which division the Cavalry Brigade should be assigned to. And you must deal with the "spotter plane" house rule I've come up with, which I'll also explain later. Of course, there's much more to commanding a corps than that, but that's not for me to tell you about... DIVISION COMMANDERS: PRE-BATTLE Like the corps commander, there are few things you must do, by the rules. Hand out the division assets, and give me orders for where you want to set up your Divisional HQ. More to follow on that subject. And then you have to be part of the chain of command, of course. BRIGADE COMMANDERS: PRE-BATTLE Now we get to the sharp end. What you need to do is turn your bosses' good wishes and highfalutin' thoughts into action. Here are the rules that you need to understand in order to give effective orders before the battle starts. Your unit will start the game off the board and enter across a nominated map edge when there is room for it. (There's not going to be a huge traffic jam on turn 1, we'll get everyone on, mostly.) It will then move according to a pre-written sequence of orders that you give it. Once the battle begins, any orders you give to your companies are subject to the possibility that the orders will not reach them. Pre-battle orders do not have this problem; you have plenty of time to explain your intentions to the men. For more detail on giving orders, see this updated post downthread. DURING THE BATTLE: BRIGADE COMMANDERS During a turn, a brigade is in one of two states: Attack or Defend. If you want your blokes to move, they must be set to Attack. When a Brigade is set to Attack, all companies must move their maximum speed, except that units who need to be stationary to fire will come to a stop on sighting an enemy and (if necessary) begin unlimbering. This is part of the reason why I must have an arrow with your orders; your brigade moves according to the direction of its arrow. By the same token, if you want your blokes to hold in place (and the rules about how firing resolves give an advantage to stationary units over moving ones), their Brigade must be set to Defend; they will then come to a stop. This is the other part of why the orders you give me must have an arrow on them; the end of the arrow indicates where the brigade is to stop. You can also give me orders that say things like "move to point X, Defend for 4 turns, return to Attack, move to point Y." A Change of Orders is when you attempt to alter what your men are doing. This is not a game where I come back to you after every turn to ask if you're sure you still want to keep advancing towards the town. Those men are going to advance until there's a good reason for them not to. Likewise, if they're stopped, they're going to stay stopped until there's a reason to move. You deal with immediate tactical concerns by setting Standing Orders, automatic responses to common situations. CHANGE OF ORDERS When you issue new orders, you do it in the same way as you did pre-battle; draw a map with an arrow, explain what it means. If you want to alter a Standing Order, you can also do that. THE COMMAND RADIUS You have a double Command Radius surrounding your BHQ chit. If a company is within 8" of BHQ, it receives a successful Change of Orders attempt on the same turn it was issued. If it is more than 8" away but is within 16", it is less likely to receive the change, and there is a delay of one turn while someone goes to find them and tell them about the Change of Orders. If it's outside 16", you cannot control it and it will continue doing what it was doing until and unless you can catch it up again. There are other things can screw up your attempted order change; being fired on, for instance. So that's how Brigade commanders interact with their companies. But how do they interact with their boss? DURING THE BATTLE - CORPS AND DIVISION COMMAND Brigadiers are at a major advantage to their real-life counterparts; where a brigadier in the real war was only aware of the immediate doings of his own brigade (and often not particularly aware even of that), a brigade commander in the Great Goon War is aware of what everyone on their own team is planning and doing. They are therefore able to act on player knowledge of things they should not, in fact, have any knowledge of; Westmost Brigade can break off a planned attack and head across country to assist the beleagured Eastmost Brigade. Additionally, we need a method of simulating the real-life fact that it was extremely difficult for commanders in the First World War to adapt and change their orders to meet a developing situation. So, in order to issue a Change of Orders, Brigade commanders have to jump through a series of hoops first. The underlying principle is that since everyone knows information that only the Corps Commander should know, all attempts to change one's orders must clear through Corps Commmand. If a brigade attempts to change its orders, it must succeed on a dice roll. For a brigade located near its divisional commander, who in turn is in direct telephone contact with its corps commander, this is relatively easy. For a brigade located halfway across the map, nowhere near a road, far from its divisional commander, and locked in heavy combat, this is relatively difficult. If the roll succeeds, your brigade starts putting its new orders into effect. If not, it continues with its old orders, and may attempt to change orders again on subsequent turns. Divisional command can assist with helping its brigades change orders by remaining in telephone contact with Corps HQ, which it does by being in a town with a road link back to your side's nominated edge of the map; if DHQ moves, or the telephone wires are cut, its brigades' ability to change orders decreases significantly. It also has a 30" aura around it; if a brigade leaves the 30" zone, it becomes harder to change orders. Brigades can also make it easier to change orders by being within 8" of a road. (This is so that the abstracted message-carrying runners can move between HQs as quickly as possible.) There's a tradeoff to be made here for Divisional commanders. What do you value more - safety behind the lines at the cost of being further from your men, or closeness to your men, while being very distant from your boss and risking being cut off by the enemy? It'll depend on your plan. THE RUNNER There is also a special chit called the Runner, who appears to convey certain critical messages from Brigades who fulfil an objective in their orders. The Runner moves by the quickest route known to it towards the last known or expected location of the HQ it's heading to. All well and good when it's heading for a Divisional HQ that hasn't moved in years; but when it's going to a HQ in the field, which could be God knows where? And then, if enemies unexpectedly appear and force Divisional HQ to move, and the Runner doesn't know about it, or if the Runner is simply unlucky while moving, they can be killed or captured, and their information will be available to the enemy... Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 01:57
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For the avoidance of doubt, reserve brigades are of poorer quality than regular brigades, but may be deployed from turn 1 at the Corps Commander's discretion.xthetenth posted:Out of cuirassity, what are my horsey dudes equipped with? Is it one fast MG unit, three batteries of guns and then guys with cuirasses that I'm going to spend the game pleading to use as surrogate runners, or more a dragoon type setup? Your regular cavalry chits are armed with sabres (for use in a charge) and Berthier carbines; they have been convinced to leave all their shiny bollocks behind because a bullet in the face often offends. OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUE FROM: GEN. LYAUTEY, 2nd ARMY HQ TO: GEN. MON PERE, IV CORPS HQ Time is short, so please excuse the lack of official felicitations. First, please see enclosed a full-sized military-scale map of your area of operations. Under no circumstances may your men stray from this area. [That means, no map expansions like we had last time round.]  Here also is the Official Range Ruler. [40 pixels to the inch, every inch represents 80 yards.]  The latest reports tell us that enemy forces have been spotted off to the north, heading in your direction. Here are your orders, in descending priority. You will enter the map in the marked area, and then:  1. Proceed with all speed towards the critical strategic location of St Croissants and secure it against enemy occupation. 2. Occupy the maximum national territory possible against the depredations of the villainous Boche. 3. Occupy and maintain a presence in Faibleimpot village. This location is vital for our future operations. [Battle End 1] 4. Maintain the integrity of your forces to the best of your ability. [Battle End 2] Some Army-level reinforcements are available should you require them; but it will be strongly to your credit if you can achieve victory without this. Now let's get the bastards. Signed, Hubert Lyautey, General So there you go. You'll be judged after the battle on how well you can balance these competing demands. The battle will end when one side fulfils its end-of-battle criteria: If you occupy Faibleimpot and get a message back to Corps Command, a timer will begin. When the timer runs out, reinforcements will arrive in enough strength to end the battle. They will be irritated should it turn out that Faibleimpot is not in French hands when they arrive. If you lose three-quarters of your total forces, including any Army-level reserves provided or unexpected BEF reinforcements, General Lyautey will consider that the battle is too bloody and will order it stopped. Finally, for a better understanding of scale, here's the full-size map again; once with a single brigade on it for each side, and once with your entire corps on it.   edit: This was asked in the other thread and it bears repeating A Goon In A Pointy Hat posted:This is probably too much to hope for, but is there any room for conditionals in orders? Something like "Advance to that ridge. If there are any enemies in the valley below, stay there and engage. If not, cross through the valley and up that other ridge." Conditionals like this are very strongly encouraged, particularly if you also tell me information like e.g. whether or not you should auto-deploy a Runner if contact is made. The more I don't have to ask you questions because something happened that wasn't covered by your orders, the faster I can run the game. Just make sure that if you're going to have a condition like this, tell me what you want to do after the condition ends, otherwise things could get interesting. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 13:18
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How the Game is Played vol. 2: Time, Movement, and Spotting Having discussed the rules for giving orders, let us now consider how units move when they are ordered. Rules about firing and engineers and other such things are coming later; these effortposts take time. Time and Turns The battle begins at 0700, dawn, and continues until the victory conditions are met. Sunset is at 2030. Each turn is 30 minutes long, which gives you 27 turns of daylight. The weather forecast is early mist, clearing at some point after 0730, and good weather all day. Conditions for flying are excellent. (Please note that the above only relates to the first 1914 game played on the Saint Croissant map. Subsequent games have different weather conditions and hours of daylight.) Each turn consists of a series of phases: all units on Team A move, then all units on Team B move; then anyone who is eligible gets to open fire according to a detailed priority list; then if there's a decision to be made, the relevant player(s) make their decisions; and then another turn starts. Who moves and fires first in any one phase is determined by initiative, a die roll before each turn. Basic Movement The unmodified movement for all units is as follows: quote:Infantry, Engineers, Machine Guns, Artillery, and anything else I haven't thought of: 8" That's simple enough. Remember that you must be on Attack orders to move, and when you move you must move your full movement allowance. However, let's just complicate things slightly. House Rule: Battle Order, Marching Order, and Roads The base game is designed to be played on a scale small enough for the presence of roads to not be important. We're scaling up to a map that's miles wide from end to end, so roads matter and we need a house rule to govern them. Now the fun part. When a Brigade is in Attack stance, it may be in one of two states: Battle Order and Marching Order. A unit's default state is Battle Order, ready for combat. Brigades in Defend stance must be in Battle Order. However, when an Attack brigade is put in Marching Order and its HQ is on a road, it halts for one full turn and adopts the formation you see in the Corps diagram, and everyone in the Brigade is considered to be on the road. The Brigade then gains a movement bonus equal to half its speed. You may bring a unit onto the map in Marching Order and it immediately gains the speed bonus. Cavalry units attached to brigades can move at 24". A Company in Marching Order is not allowed to fire even if it is eligible; it must first go into Battle Order, and the brigade spends its next available movement phase leaving its Marching Order formation and taking up its Battle Order formation. (There is a default Battle Order formation provided, but I strongly suggest you design your own.) Brigades in marching order do not display their attached assets; they are assumed to be in the column somewhere and may not be targeted until the brigade enters battle order. Have fun with that. Is it worth following the roads to get the extra movement, or will you cut across country? Do you want your men to stop and fight if encountering the enemy while on a road, or press on towards their objective? House Rule: Activity While Defending Brigades on Defend stance which are not currently spotting an enemy at 12" automatically Entrench themselves, which takes 6 turns. (Note: again, this applies only to the first 1914 round on the Saint Croissant map. Units still auto-entrench in following rounds, but I may well have changed the amount of time that it takes to entrench.) Cavalry Cavalry brigades have an expanded command circle of 12" and 24". Cavalry companies may be ordered to dismount at the cost of half their movement; they are then treated as infantry until they remount (at the same cost). Do you want to launch a bold cavalry charge, or dismount and ambush the enemy with firepower? Artillery Artillery larger than 75mm must be limbered and towed in order to move. Artillery smaller than 75mm can be carried for up to 4 turns in succession before it must be either limbered or put down. So, French 75mm guns can be carried, but the big bastards have to be limbered. In order to unlimber, a gun must remain stationary for one full turn. If it finishes its movement on turn 6, it spends the whole of turn 7 unlimbering and cannot fire until turn 8. Likewise, an unlimbered gun takes one full turn to limber before it can move off. Arse hortillery does not need to be unlimbered. Note that a British 18-pounder field gun has a calibre of 84mm. Terrain So, here's what all the colours mean. Green space is simple open ground. Dark green indicates woods and forests; infantry passes through easily, guns struggle if they're not on a road. The hills you seem to have figured out (there's a slight movement penalty for going up a level, but I'm not saying exactly what it is), as well as the roads and towns. The little snot blobs in open ground are farms, which may or may not cause a movement penalty to go through (again, deliberately not saying). Pink is the railway line, which costs an extra inch of movement to cross unless you're cavalry, or on a road. Woods, each level of a hill, and towns all block line of sight. (Note: The La Dand-Effyaders map contains a depression, which has its own rules.) SPOTTING: OR, HOW NOT TO BE SEEN Right, pay attention to this bit; it is absolutely critical that you understand it, because it's what the spotting rules are based on. Spotting is not a thing that you do; spotting is a thing that is done to you. These rules are not written in terms of "infantry can see this far away, cavalry can see further because of their magic binoculars". They are in terms of "if you are doing X, any enemy chit can see you from Y inches away". There's a few exceptions, but in the main, spotting is not something you do; spotting is something that is done to you. The base spotting ranges are as follows: quote:If the following applies to YOUR CHIT, an enemy unit may spot it at the stated distance: Spotting occurs during any phase when a Company is within the unobstructed Spotting Range of an enemy company; each company determines spotting individually. House Rule: Spotting Companies in Marching Order Regardless of how Brigades in Marching Order appear on the map, all spotting distances (and only spotting distances) are reckoned as if all its companies and attached companies are located on the road, within the boundaries of the formation. House Rule: Hills and Spotting I was surprised when I found out how stingy the rulebook is about the effects of hills; I suspect that it's something, like roads, that doesn't scale up well. Therefore, the following house rules apply. (NOTE: Once again, this only applies to round 1 at Saint Croissant. Different spotting ranges can and will apply to different maps.) quote:A company that is on a hill may spot other units, and be spotted if it moves or fires, at 32" away if it is on level 1 of a hill, 40" if it is on level 2 of a hill, and 48" at level 3. So, a company on level 1 of a hill has 32" of vision (yes, I know that supercedes what I just said about spotting, this is an exception to the general rule), but if it's moving around or it opens fire on anything while up there, it can also be spotted by an enemy that's 32" away. Vision versus visibility! You may well be able to see my house from up there, but in return, I can also see that you are up on the hill. Should provide a few comedy "OH gently caress" moments. See below for more detail and a case study on the slightly weird rules for hills. Cover These rules do not apply to towns; towns are a special case, dealt with in a moment. A company is in Cover when it is stationary in a Farm, or is in a Wood or Entrenchment. Entrenchments offer protective cover from enemy fire as well as from being Spotted. Any company which is in in Cover and did not move at all on the turn lays an Ambush for its opponents, and may not be fired on until the turn after it is spotted. A company inside a Wood can only see out of the Wood if it is within 4 inches of the relevant edge. Towns A company in a Town is invisible to anyone not in the Town and cannot see out of the Town. It has both Spotting and Protective Cover at all times while in the Town, and uses the Cover spotting rules. All Towns have Outskirts, which extend 50mm from the marked borders of the town. A company in the Outskirts has Spotting and Protective Cover and has an unobstructed view out of the Town, but cannot see into the Town, or be seen by any company inside the Town. The Outskirts are unmarked and do not exist until and unless a Company specifically declares that it is in them. A company which travels through the Town is assumed to be using the main road and its movement is not affected; a company which intends or is forced to stay must move at combat speed while it is in the town. House Rules: Spotter Plane The Corps Commander may request a Spotter Plane fly over any point on the map at any time during the day. The request must be made before the battle begins. The Spotter Plane will attempt to spot anything within 24 inches of that point that is not in cover, and will then report back to the Corps Commander. Next time: Firing Rules A Pointy-Hatted Goon posted:One more question, in this scenario, if the infantry is our guy, and the cav is enemy, which of the cav units are visible to us? Here's how this is going to work. The infantry spots all enemy units except the one at the bottom right corner, because level 2 of the hill is blocking the infantry's line of sight. In order to spot that chit, it would need to move forward onto level 2. If the cav on the edge of level 2 and 3 shuffled back an inch so it didn't have any part of its chit on level 3, it also would be hidden by level 3. It's the furthest edge of a level of elevation that blocks LOS, not the nearest. It's a bit janky and a bit gamey, but it's the best we can do without mucking around with crest lines. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Mar 10, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 21:31
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THE OBSERVER THREAD IS NOW OUT OF BOUNDS UNTIL THE END OF THE BATTLE Orders from all Brigade Commanders are due in at the absolute latest before 5pm GMT Thursday 16th, one week from now, but if we can get them in sooner, we'll start sooner. xthetenth posted:Trin, does arse hortillery being arse supersede that they're hortillery? IE, do all of my cavalry move 12/16? Also, is that 16" not counting the marching order bonus, which would then bring it to 24"? This is all correct; the guns that cav together, stay together, or something. 12 base, 16 Battle Order on a road, 24 Marching Order on a road. edit: have a fully-named map, full-size then pocket-size  
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 9, 2017 21:58
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Rule Clarifications Brigade-to-Brigade Communications I've been thinking about this point for a while; here's my solution. Tehan posted:Can BHQs use their runners to communicate with other brigades No, but there *is* another way of doing this, and I agree it makes sense for Brigades to pass information between each other. Any Brigade which has a Company within spotting distance of a Company from another Brigade (and its vision is not obstructed in some way) is considered "in touch" with the other Brigade. Information that reaches Brigade HQ is automatically shared with any other Brigades with which it is in touch, after a delay while the (abstracted) runners move around. (Yes, this means that you will technically be in touch with a brigade that's 40" away at the top of a hill, but any information shared between them will take several hours to arrive.) Spotting an enemy company based on information from other Brigades may trigger Auto-Responses or clauses of your orders. Ordering Units and the Command Zone Companies may be ordered outside the Command Zone by their commander. For instance, an infantry brigadier with attached cavalry may want to order their cavalry forward to scout and then return. When a Company leaves the Command Zone, Brigade HQ will only know what it is doing if another company can Spot it, and information does not travel back to Brigade HQ from the absent company until it returns to the Command Zone. Companies outside the Command Zone attempt to fulfil their last written orders as best they can; if they are still out of command range, they then switch to Defend orders and do not move. Cavalry in Brigades in Marching Order A cavalry unit attached to a Brigade which is in Marching Order can choose to move at the infantry's speed if its commander does not want it getting ahead of the column. Once the Brigade goes into Battle Order its obligatory movement returns to 12". Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Feb 11, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 01:25
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Firing rules, or, PEW PEW BANG BANG rAttATaTTarAttATaTTa BOOOOOOOOOM Here are the rules on what happens when you shoot at things. Firing Range The base firing ranges are as follows. quote:Infantry/Cavalry: 8" When eligible to do so, any company may fire in any direction at any enemy company which it has Spotted on the current turn, subject to the order of priority (see below). Firing occurs after all movement by both sides has been resolved; there is a mechanic to govern what happens if company moves into and then out of an enemy's firing range. If a company is in Cover and firing at an enemy inside the same piece of Cover, firing range is limited to 4". Fire and Friendly Units There is no friendly fire. Infantry and Cavalry cannot fire through friendly units (although they may move through a friendly unit's space, so long as there's room for it to do so). Artillery may only fire through a friendly unit if it fulfils the requirements for Overhead Fire. Machine-Gun Fire Machine Guns may fire through friendly units. If they are in a Wood or Trench and in base-to-base contact with an Infantry or Cavalry company; or in a Town and in base-to-base contact with a company in the Outskirts, their firing range is calculated from the company they are in contact with. This has now become known as the Billy Bonus, and is further described here. Overhead Fire A unit's Firing range is not affected by being on a hill. Artillery may fire over the heads of friendly companies on the same elevation, provided that the company is at least 2" away from the guns and 2" away from the target. Any company which is is entirely on one level of a hill may fire over the head of friendly units who are entirely 1 or more levels below where this would otherwise not be possible. Companies with elevation cannot fire at targets that have a friendly company within 2". Other Restrictions on Artillery Artillery may only fire out of a wood if its edge is touching the edge of the wood; it may only fire out of a town if in the Outskirts; no artillery in a wood may fire into the wood; no artillery in the Outskirts may fire into a town; no artillery in a town may fire at all. The Order of Combat Combat proceeds in the following phases: quote:Indirect Fire Artillery Combat is not resolved like movement; in combat, Team A's artillery fires, then Team B's artillery fires; then Team A's MGs, then Team B's MGs, etc. The Order of Priority A company which fires always attacks the closest company it is allowed to fire at, subject to the Order of Priority, which is based on a "like to like" principle. Artillery must fire at artillery if available, then machine-guns, then any other target Machine Guns are the exception: they target Rifle Companies (infantry and cavalry) first, then any other target Rifle Companies must target other Rifle Companies, then Machine Guns, then Artillery. HQ Units and Runners are always last in the Order of Priority and may only be shot at when there is no other valid target. Close Combat Rifle Companies which, during their movement, move into base-to-base contact with an enemy company which it Spotted on a previous turn, initiate Close Combat. Infantry companies perform a Bayonet Charge; Cavalry performs a Cavalry Charge. Units who are being charged suspend the Order of Priority rules and instead fire on the charging company. A unit may be charged by multiple opponents at once. A unit in Close Combat may not be targeted by enemy artillery. Any other unit that would move into base-to-base contact with an enemy stops 1" short, as does any company which would move into base-to-base contact on the same turn that an enemy company is Spotted, and any company which is Suppressed (see below) while charging. A charge which scores a hit (which is more likely than a hit with rifle fire) either kills the charged company or forces it to retreat suppressed. A successful Bayonet Charge allows the company to attack one more enemy within range; a successful Cavalry Charge may attack up to three more enemies. FIBUA, FISH, and FIPAC (or, Special Rules for Towns) In a town, all firing ranges are restricted to 4", and a unit may enter Close Combat without first Spotting its enemy. (Fighting In Built Up Areas, Fighting In Someone's House, and Fighting In Pubs And Clubs. Guess which the British Army does the most?) Firing Mechanics I roll dice and determine who gets hit. There will be no discussion of the exact mechanics. Results of Fire, Suppression Firing results in one of three outcomes: Miss, Suppression, Kill. A company that is missed is unaffected; a company that is killed is removed; a company that is suppressed remains on the board and may not move or fire. If a company is hit while suppressed, it is killed. In the Rally phase, all surviving Suppressed companies attempt to remove their suppression; if successful they continue trying to carry out their orders. Morale There are two Morale phases, immediately before and immediately after close combat. On the turn that it occurs, if a Regular brigade is reduced to 1/2 or 1/3 of its original strength (not including attached units), it makes a Morale Check. Your two Reserve brigades must make an additional morale check at 2/3 strength. (They don't keep making checks on every turn; only on the turn on which they are reduced.) There are three possible results: Rout, Retreat Suppressed, and Unaffected. If the Brigade routs, all its Companies are removed, including attached units. If the Brigade Retreats Suppressed, on its next turn all its companies (including suppressed and attached companies) Break Off; when they finish breaking off, all units are suppressed. (Suppressed units who retreated due to a Morale Check are not Killed.) Any Orders the Brigade was trying to carry out are disregarded; any units that Rally go into Defend stance. Night Operations A few of the rules about firing and spotting change during the hours of darkness: see this post for details. Supplemental: The Engineer Not really part of firing rules, but I think I'm pretty much done with stuff to explain, and he's not worth his own post, although he is a lot of fun... An Engineer has many uses; in Grey's game they spent a shitload of time building bridges. It's a fighting stand, and when on the board, it moves/spots/defends itself as though it were Infantry. However, I keep Engineer chits off-board and operating in an abstract manner unless they're within 12" of an enemy company, or specifically ordered to come on-board (for instance, if they're needed to replace a killed infantry company). An Engineer can move around freely when it has a task to perform, regardless of the stance of its Brigade; takes 4 turns to entrench itself (a regular Company on Defend Orders takes 6); it produces 3" of trench on each side of itself (the regular company produces 1"); and it goes on working even if it Spots an enemy or is fired on, although it's not allowed to fire while working. It also carries onto the map 3" of barbed wire, which takes 4 turns to place, and it can also Slim Jim Pickens posted:Bonejorr monsewers, it's Staff Officer Slim Jim Pickens from the Corps de la Géographie. Woods block line of sight and provide spotting cover to units inside them. (Mistakes like this are why the normal rules say that spotting is something that's done to you, not something that you do - it's very easy to overlook the conditional that's in effect at t'other end; if you calculate from the unit being spotted, you just go "oh, he's in the wood" and remember he's hidden.) edit: FYI: I've been doing a few quick playtests of my various house rules, and I'm going to need to revamp the rules about when brigade commanders can give new orders because there's still too much scope for interrupting the flow of the game; file it under "things that work fine in person but not in an internet game". Fortunately, you guys aren't really thinking of brigade-level operations yet. I'll be quick. Sorry.
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 12:03
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Revised brigade ordering rules are up; basically, they can only make a Change of Orders when a Runner from a higher HQ gets to them, and I'm asking for a list of Auto-Response settings in your brigade orders so I can answer questions like "do you want to break off yet?" (which will be occurring multiple times a turn every turn once battle is properly joined) without interrupting the game; if I'm going to interrupt the game, I want it to be because someone has to make a strategically important decision.Slim Jim Pickens posted:Thanks for clarifying. Does the rest of the map pass review? If something provides cover, it always provides cover. Once a company enters a wood it is in cover. If a company is in position to see out of an elevated wood, it gets the vision bonus for being on elevation. For everyone else's spotting purposes, the offending company is in a wood, not on a hill. The rest of the map looks good enough for LOS. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Feb 11, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 23:46
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Bacarruda posted:Some questions. What if a unit gets cut off and can't receive runners? Can our spotter plane try to drop them a message? Can they attempt a breakout? Or are they just stuck? They're hosed. The thing is, if cut-off units can try to break out, then people can use player knowledge to break out in an advantageous direction, and they'll also know when the tipping point is from "this is a calculated risk" to "oh gently caress oh gently caress oh gently caress". It's a recurring story again and again in WW1 that units got cut off and took hideous casualties because they advanced too far, or in an unwise direction, and nobody knew what they were getting themselves into until it was too late to do anything about it, to the point where I'd call it a defining feature of the war. That's another of the philosophies behind the orders rules that I've put in place; as far as possible, it nullifies the effect of player knowledge from all being in one thread reading everyone's updates. It now matters a lot less that individual brigadiers know more about what everyone else in the army is doing than they should, because your ability to act is limited to times when higher command would be able to communicate the knowledge to you. Bacarruda posted:Regular units can't fire over the heads of friendlies troops in base-to-base contact, right? Only MGs can do that, correct? Can they fire over the heads of friendlies if they're at a higher elevation Yes, so long as both units are entirely on different levels; but they have to obey the 2" rule for targeting. quote:In general, artillery (75mm field guns and the 155mm howitzers) fire of the heads of friendlies? What if the artillery is in base-to-base contact with friendlies? What if the guns are at a higher elevation? Artillery can fire over the heads of units on the same elevation if there is 2" of clearance at both ends. Artillery cannot fire through base-to-base contact. edit: since the order has been made to start considering them Notes on Brigade Formations For a formation in which all units are positioned within the inner (8") Command Radius of BHQ, it will take one turn to adopt the formation. For a formation in which any unit* is positioned within the outer (16") Command Radius of BHQ, it will take two turns to adopt the formation. The formation will not move until all units are in position. Cavalry attached to an infantry brigade may move 12" away from it in one turn. Road bonuses are not considered when moving into formation. The Cavalry Brigade's Command Radius is 12/24. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Feb 11, 2017 |
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Feb 11, 2017 13:04
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xthetenth posted:The outskirts length given is 50mm, is that getting rounded to 2 inches? The Outskirts are the precise width of a unit in base contact with the edge of a town and they only exist when a unit specifically declares it is inside them. Things that perhaps should have gone in the rules posts, vol. 211... edit: since someone else asked in the other thread, the railway has no in-game mechanical use. Trains would not have been run anywhere remotely close to where there might possibly perhaps maybe be fighting. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Feb 12, 2017 |
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Feb 11, 2017 21:28
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An updated guide to brigadiers for writing orders (and sorting out a few existing complexity vs playability issues) will appear tomorrow. In the meantime, everyone should check my rules posts again, thoroughly, and get any remaining questions out now. I'm surely not the first person to underestimate the amount of changes that needed to be made after playtesting and I've been tweaking and experimenting and re-experimenting and re-tweaking in response to test results and player questions, unfortunately without keeping a proper changelog (it would have drowned the thread in me if I'd made a new post for every change). But yeah, stuff's changed, most of it not drastically, but lots of it will affect which orders you give and how. In particular I am thinking very hard about the whole question of conditional orders and automatic responses; somewhere in there is the balance I'm looking for between giving you the freedom to be cool and imaginative, and making the game impossible to adjudicate from drowning in "if X, then Y; if A, then B; if L and a little P comes out, IHOP; but I before E except after C at all times when you hold a half fizzbin" constructions all tailored to each individual brigade, either because of orders that end up butting against the rules, or having to apply a million automatic responses every time a brigade even thinks about advancing. Still trying to find it. Sorry; this is possibly now starting to cut into brigadiers' critical planning time. It may be a question of this is something that just has to be played out.
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Feb 12, 2017 21:57
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Brigade Orders, Automatic Orders, Runners, and Other Associated and Miscellaneous Crap Right then. First I owe thanks to everyone in both sides' Roll20 for letting me talk at them for a while yesterday, which has really helped me nail down the flaws in the original presentation of the rules and get them closer to what I was intending. I'll go back and revise the original rules now. HOW TO WRITE BRIGADE ORDERS You must include a map with an arrow indicating how your forces will move. The arrow is non-negotiable. I cannot properly adjudicate moves without an arrow. Any orders without an arrow are invalid and will fail. You should include pictures of all Battle Order formations you wish to use (or at least a link to them; perhaps Corps HQ could collate a list of formations that everyone could refer to and not clog their orders up with too many images?). You may use more than one at various points; transitioning from one formation to another occurs "on the move". Any orders given without reference to a formation shall use the default formation. You should tell me what the brigade is to do when it arrives at its finishing point, and you are encouraged to be as exact as possible about the final location of Brigade HQ. When a brigade arrives at the finishing point of its orders it will automatically switch to Defend, and entrench itself. Conditionals It is allowed to include in your orders a condition for your brigade to follow: for instance "If an enemy is sighted, retreat in direction X; otherwise, continue to [TOWN_NAME]." However, please remember that I have a lot of brigades to move around the board. The more complicated your orders, the more conditions they include, the more likely I am to misunderstand something, forget a particular permutation, or implement the orders in a way other than you intended. I will not re-adjudicate turns if this happens; you are responsible for giving clear orders. You may not use conditionals to vary the Standing Orders or override game rules, such as the firing Order of Priority. It is invalid to, for instance, order infantry companies to "Fire first on artillery, then on machine guns"; they will always obey the rules. There is one exception: I will in certain situations accept "Hold your fire unless..." orders if, for instance, you want to fully bait the enemy into a trap before firing on them. Breaking Off It is permissible to, when writing a Change of Orders, give orders for "Break Off and then move as follows:" you will switch to Attack at the end of the break-off and move accordingly. You may not write a break-off conditional in your initial orders. However, if you break off due to a Standing Order, your men lose their orders, automatically switch to Defend stance, and must receive a Change of Orders to move again. Attack and Defend stance, and obligatory movement As a general principle: an infantry company on Attack must move its full movement on every turn. An MG or artillery company must move its full movement unless there is an enemy company within firing range, in which case it stops to fire. All three types of company must remain stationary on Defend stance. These rules are interpreted very loosely when a brigade arrives at a point where it intends to stay; as long as the brigade is coming to a stop, it's permitted to have e.g. companies who arrived at their final point last turn, who do not move on this turn, while other companies are still moving into their final positions because they lacked the movement to make it all the way last turn. Standing Orders Standing Orders cover the following common situations. When the condition is triggered, the brigade automatically reacts as specified without the need for intervention by you. If you've played isometric RPGs like Baldur's Gate, think of them as being kind of like auto-pause settings. Please note that you may not add extra Standing Orders, or change the options available to you. If what you want to do is not listed below, you are not setting a Standing Order, you're adding a conditional to your orders. They're at risk of being disregarded or misinterpreted if you've put them in with your Standing Orders. The list of Standing Orders is as follows. If you do not explicitly set a Standing Order, it automatically is set to the default. It is always best to use the wording that I give here. Default order Optional order quote:When sighting an enemy on Attack stance: If you select "turn and move", a new arrow will be drawn pointing directly at the enemy and your formation turns to face its new direction. Once no enemy companies remain in spotting range, your brigade will move back towards the path of its original movement arrow, re-adopt my closest approximation of your original formation, and continue moving towards its destination. (This, and all procedures, assumes that you have not in the meantime made a Change of Orders.) quote:When attacking the enemy: Brigades default to charging, but may advance using rifle fire if you want. Brigades on Defend orders must remain stationary and use rifle fire to defend themselves. Only rifle companies charge; MG and artillery companies remain stationary and support the charge. quote:When an enemy company Breaks Off or Retreats Suppressed: The brigade suspends its original orders and chases after the retreating companies until they're no longer spottable. The same rule for returning to its original arrow applies to automatic pursuit as it does for "turn and move" up above - the pursuit continues until the enemy is gone and then you return to your original orders. The Senlac Hill Rule says that Brigades on Defend stance do not pursue retreats regardless of this setting; to do that you need a Change of Orders and a switch to Attack stance. You cannot tempt a defender out of good defensive positions by attacking and immediately breaking off to trigger a Standing Order; if a brigade is going to do that, it needs a human to order it. quote:Break Off automatically when: This is to allow Brigades to set how aggressive they want to be. As mentioned above, Brigades which Break Off due to a Standing Order switch to Defend and require a Change of Orders before they can move again. You may not add new Standing Orders or alter these orders. [SUPERCEDED INFORMATION ABOUT RUNNERS HAS BEEN REMOVED] I do believe I'm done. Feel free to keep asking questions, but hopefully all the big holes are closed and now we're just looking at edge cases. edit: At General Mon Pere's chateau, the telephone rings... The Goon With The Pointiest Hat Of Them All posted:Hello? Yes, hello? Is this the French field telephone? How splendid! Would you kindly get me the corps commander? Yes? The speaker identified himself as Generalleutnant Tevery Spitzehut Unhofflichmann Beste von Polieren. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Feb 13, 2017 16:55
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ATTN. ALL BRIGADE COMMANDERS Comrade Koba posted:
See this? This is good. Do your orders just like this. edit: Corps commanders, please check your players are still present, there is a distinct lack of activity for there needing to be 9 brigadiers all hashing out their orders edit edit: here is your telephone map 
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Feb 13, 2017 |
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Feb 13, 2017 21:16
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[eliminated superceded stuff about runners] edit: Many Goons posted:MGs that are in base contact with an infantry unit can fire as if they stood where that infantry unit does, but remain protected from enemy fire by the presence of said infantry. This is a fine point that has confused people on both sides, so let's clarify it for both threads. MGs can fire through friendly units at all times. MGs in base-to-base contact with a Rifle Company only reckon their firing range from the rifle company if the MG is in a Wood or Trench; or if the MG is in a Town and its Rifle Company is in the Outskirts. These MGs both get the Billy Bonus:  Only the bottom MG gets the Billy Bonus:  Please note that I use red chits as markers; they do not belong to any side, and if they accidentally get left on any map that you see, do not panic. edit edit: in accordance with the battle theories of General Mon Pere, the default French formation is now as follows 
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Feb 14, 2017 12:24
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This is not quite the First World War as we remember it, so yes, in this reality General Lyautey did not go to Morocco. Similarly, the German army commander is one Kuno Augustus Friedrich Karl Detlev Graf von Moltke, who in OTL was sacked as military governor of Berlin after a journalist found out he was having it off with Prince Philipp of Eulenberg (to the point where Kuno's wife filed for divorce on the grounds that her husband was more interested in shagging Phillipp than her), one of the Kaiser's best friends and chief counsellors. The Great Goon War, however, takes place in very, very, very slightly more enlightened times.
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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Feb 14, 2017 14:14
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Housekeeping notes: The soft deadline for orders is 2pm GMT Thursday 16th. Orders that arrive after the deadline but before I begin the adjudication may or may not accepted at my discretion. You will be informed when the adjudication has begun and no orders whatsoever will be accepted after that point. Also, I will not be offering critiques of everyone's orders. Someone in here has produced Good and Cool orders that I approve of. It is now the job of senior commanders to get everything shipshape and Bristol fashion. I am still available for clarification of rules. I will also accept emergency orders from Divisional commanders for brigades whose commanders' whereabouts are uncertain. Also I'll be posting a short questionnaire so y'all and the observer thread have something to do/watch while you wait. Participation is greatly appreciated. Checklist for Corps commanders: Have I assigned the Corps assets to divisions? Have I ordered the spotter plane? Have I collected everyone's orders into one place to make things easy for certain persons whom it would be well to keep happy? Checklist for Divisional commanders: Have I attached the Divisional assets to brigades? Have I given legal orders for the movement of my Divisional HQ? Have all my brigadiers given legal orders? Checklist for Brigade commanders Am I aware of all rules that might be relevant to what I'm trying to do? Are my orders legal and compliant with the latest guidelines? Am I sure that I have posted them in the thread, clearly marked? and, finally, Am I as offensive as I might be? This last one, is clearly, most important.
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Feb 15, 2017 01:27
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Official Historian's Survey: Turn 0 In among the vast amount of paperwork for a general officer to deal with on the eve of battle, you find a note from the Official Historian, urging you to set out your honest and unrestrained views now for posterity and the benefit of future officers and servants of the Empire. He asks that you answer all, some, or fewer of the following questions, and assures you that they will be kept most secret until the end of the war. 1. How do you feel the planning for this battle has gone, in general? 2. How confident are you in the plans and orders that you personally have laid for this battle? 3. How confident are you in fulfilling the various objectives set by the Army Commander? 4. Is there any one aspect of the battle that seems to you will be most critical, on which success or failure is most likely to turn? 5. Thinking optimistically, what do you think the likely result of the battle will be? 6. Thinking pessimistically, what do you think the likely result of the battle will be? Post ITT. Keep the observer thread supplied with content.
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Feb 16, 2017 02:37
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It is the hour before dawn. Many of you are already on the march. General Mon Pere grabs a few hours of sleep, an ADC sitting by the telephone. The men's spirits are light; your junior officers have kept them calm and reassured, and slightly drunk on glory and victory and pinard. Your plans are laid as well as they ever will be, and now it is time to put them into practice. After all that, the calculation of the odds, the sifting of the probabilities, and then the fear... Your fate is now, for the moment, out of your hands.  It is in mine.  France wins the initiative. Game on! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt7xJdKfIMM THE ADJUDICATION HAS NOW BEGUN. NO FURTHER ORDERS WILL BE ACCEPTED. edit: The game has reached Turn 4 and halted for the night. Neither DHQ is eligible to send runners. Update pending. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Feb 17, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 19:26
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Well, that all took much longer than it should have, but it sorted itself out just as soon as I started using my clever system the way I designed it instead of trying to take shortcuts. I'll hopefully come back later and make this look nice, but for now I urgently need to do something else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HkJHApgKqw Turn 1: 0700 French initiative Y'all march onto the field, companies tripping over each other every which where and loose. In pretty short order I realise nobody's getting on the field if I don't quickly suspend the rule about no company being allowed to share another's space until the space issues sort themselves out.  See what I mean? I'm not spending another 45 minutes shuffling chits around to get everyone their 50 square pixels of space and then doing it all over again for the next three turns. There's still mist covering the battlefield; you see nothing of interest. Turn 2: 0730 French initiative The mist has almost completely dissipated. The Cavalry Brigade dimly sees 3 enemy cavalry troops and one machine-gun troop as it comes over Pasteur Ridge and makes for Saint Croissant. Two other German cavalry troops appear atop La Cote, fire wildly, and turn to flee; everyone is far too surprised at nearly blundering into each other in the fog to be able to hit anything. Were the enemy supposed to be coming from over there?   (The cav outside Croissant and the second troop on La Cote got accidentally switched off and I'm far too shagged out now to switch everything back off for the sake of showing two cavalry chits instead of one...) Turn 3: 0800 French initiative The mist clears. Your spotter plane flies over its target; it will take a few hours for the pilot to return to General Mon Pere. The cavalry spots something very odd as the four Uhlan troops disappear into St Croissant; what seems to be about 500 Germans frantically riding bicycles towards them. Your troopers swap off-colour jokes about bicycle saddles and pneumatic tyres.  They then ride up to St Croissant in marching order to see if the Germans have got a welcoming committee there yet.  Hmm. Meanwhile, the men on La Cote have found something. Good news, it's not the cavalry from earlier. Bad news, you've found where they're retreating to.  Welp. That's a lot of blokes. Oh yeah, and then the firing starts. Turns out there's a cavalry unit hiding in the outskirts of St Croissant. He misses.  The German arse hortillery does not, and you have taken your first casualties. There is a comedy "tyres squealing" sound effect and binka-binka-binka leg-pedalling from the horses as they attempt to flee back to the crossroads. Turn 4: 0830 German initiative The cavalry attempts to make good its escape, but the enemy arse hortillery claims another victim, and then a third troop is suppressed by a machine-gun firing out of St Croissant.  The headless troop belatedly goes into Battle Order, engaging Operation Merde. Meanwhile, around Baguende, 6th Division has the best part of two brigades atop La Cote. They have an unobstructed view behind Pasteur Ridge. It is a picture that will paint far more than a thousand words. The terrible poetry alone...  That's a full-size image for y'all to chew over while I get some sleep. To be continued! edit: just noticed that a bunch of stuff is turned off, I'll fix it, LATER PS: Division headquarters arrived without mishap and are now connected by telephone to Corps HQ. Neither is eligible to send any runners yet. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Feb 17, 2017 |
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Feb 17, 2017 02:52
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That counts as a Change of Orders, yes. The adjudication resumes at some point this afternoon.
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Feb 17, 2017 13:15
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Turn 7 has ended. It is 1000. Update to come ASAP. Both divisions, stand by to give new orders pending final adjudication.
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Feb 17, 2017 19:09
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Units with a red dot on them have been killed and are removed at the start of the next turn. Units with a white dot have been suppressed; they cannot move or fire unless they rally at the end of a turn. Unless, that is, they've been forced to retreat suppressed, in which case they run away for two turns and then are suppressed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9b9UhFe6Eg Turn 5: 0900 German initiative Your cavalry puts itself into Battle Order and rallies round its shaking heart for another wallop at Saint Croissant.  It seems pretty obvious what the Germans are going to do. The question is, how will your men react?  One of your 75s on La Cote unlimbers and takes a pot-shot at the rear of the large train marching on Baguende; it hits. (The loss will appear when the brigade goes to Battle Order.) Turn 6: 0930 German initiative So then this happens.  Your regular brigades on La Cote, their initial orders complete and La Cote well and truly taken, proceed to march on Baguette. Except there are other brigades in their way. So they have to go off to the north to avoid bumping their mates. And then march on Baguette. The Germans are not amused by this development, not one tiny bit.  Most of your units on the map have either moved too far, or are still unlimbering, or are MGs who moved, so it's almost entirely rifle fire in this corner; it's bloody enough, with kills and suppressions on both sides. You also now have two 75s firing on La Cote, and they combine to kill a German FK as it flails around trying to unlimber.  Over in the west, by the way, you have a brigade in Clemenceau that cannot get anywhere because the road is being comprehensively fouled by the units ahead of it. I flipped a coin to decide whether it would go into Battle Order and leave the road or wait for the jam to clear; it elects to wait. Turn 7: 1000 German initiative So then this happened.  I consult my orders and find a pleasing number of people have standing orders for a bayonet charge. Your western chargers did have trouble getting going on account of a German counter-charge, but a few of them made it in anyway; there's also duelling charges in the east. Then the German machine guns start to fire, and that's the end of the western charge. The Eastern charge, however, succeeds; and while your own MGs do sterling work, it is clear that before the war the Germans have been investing far more resources into this technology.  The 55th benefits greatly from having switched to Defend as it attempts to repel the charge, but there are just too many enemies to shoot them all down.  The Eastern charges strike home; individual companies are forced to retreat suppressed on both sides. At the end of the turn...  Guess what? The Germans have now mostly finished unlimbering their guns. There's something to think on over the weekend. OK, let's talk runners! At this precise moment 6th Division's HQ is about 3/4 of the way to Baguende, as ordered. One runner will arrive to meet it on Turn 8 and two more on Turn 9. 6th Division may send out up to two runners on Turn 8. 22nd Division's HQ remains at Clemenceau. It received three runners on Turn 7. It may send two runners out on Turn 8 and three more on Turn 9. Soft deadline for fresh orders is 12 noon next Monday 20th February. Have fun! Next Time: Boom Boom Boom Boom, Boom Boom Boom Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Feb 18, 2017 |
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Feb 17, 2017 21:32
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Both sides have given orders and agreed to run an extra two turns tonight. Adjudication pending...
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Feb 18, 2017 20:57
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I advise getting a stiff drink before reading this. You may need it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNatwyAJ6dI Turn 8: 1030 German initiative If the Germans can do nothing else, they can apparently roll initiative real good. Right then. Do you know what this is?  This, my friends, is a giant German artillery park which has spent the past few turns bumblefucking around trying to get into positions where they're not masking each other's fire. Guess what they just finished doing? If you said "unlimbering", well, you win the right to take cover.  It all started so well; the Germans opposite the 96th look deeply unsure of themselves, and then the 96th is all, ahem, up in their grills, as the kids say.  The 55th and associated gun line is being charged; the 52nd girds its loins and charges up Pasteur Ridge as the 53rd squeezes shut the jaws.  And then there are shouts up on La Cote. "Boches! Thousands of them! Coming onto the field from Bouclecourt!"  The dastardly swines must have been keeping reinforcements nearby! The 54th has also been charged by Germans appearing round the side of Baguette! Oaths fly around the battlefield. And then the German guns open fire en masse, and nobody hears anything else for quite a while.  The 55th's gun line tries to return the favour.  The guns atop Clemenceau and the arse hortillery at Fraisechamps fires high, wide and handsome. Then the German machine guns start up again.  Pow!  Biff!  Crunch! Your own guns are doing their best, but Hotchkiss only made so many of them before the war. The men's rifles take their toll as well. Precious few of the men on both sides who charged will survive into close combat. And, faced with the bayonets of the 52nd, the Germans on the east of Pasteur Ridge turn and flee the field before them.  The 55th and 54th have both failed to repel all enemies. Men fall before the German bayonets, and more flee, retreating suppressed but not necessarily lost to the fight just yet.   And the charge of the 96th causes a second German brigade, and all its artillery, to break and rout!  Officers roam the field, desperately trying to rally their men from suppression and go on fighting another few minutes.  It's a horrible scene, and it's about to get worse. Good news! The 97th recieved its orders to form up and get moving. Somehow their guns got switched off for the battlefield overview, but they're moving into position and will unlimber next turn, if they've anything to shoot at... Turn 9: 1100 German initiative I guess you'll have to be content with the moral superiority of winning the first roll. The 52nd tries to reform while the 53rd halts and goes to Defend orders to meet the German reinforcements. The remnants of the 55th's infantry are charged again.  So too is the 54th in the Bois de Baguette.  The 96th launches a counter-charge to rescue the 54th, and the 98th stiffens its sinews, summons up the blood, and charges into the outskirts of Saint Croissant!  The 97th continues moving west as the German gun park opens up once more, again shooting mostly at the 52nd as it tries to reform itself.  The 55th's gun line does the best it can to defend its beleaguered infantry.  The 99th's 75s are more accurate this time.  And the arse hortillery scores hits on a fresh German brigade advancing on them from the west side of Saint Croissant!  Machine gun time. Once again, the Germans have such a weight of firepower in this department.  Several companies are shot down and thrown back as they charge St C, German rifle fire adding to the machine guns' efforts.   The 53rd scores hits against the German reinforcements, but (pictured in a moment) the receipt soon comes back at them.  A third German brigade has had enough! It blanches at the sight of the 55th's gun line and throws in the towel, the sausage-sucking surrender snakes!  However, opposite them, the gallant 52nd also fails a morale check, losing its orders and being forced to retreat suppressed (it's used its movement, so its retreat begins next turn).  Watching all this, the 119th and 120th Reserve Brigades receive new orders. They open them. They inspect them carefully. Somehow, mysteriously, the orders fail to reach their men. Praise the Lord for choosing the correct time to roll terribly. German bayonets lance through the Bois de Baguette, mincing the 54th.  Only one company of the 98th survives the charge, but it enters Saint Croissant and dispatches one of their machine guns!  The 54th, reeling from the German onslaught, also fails a morale check; and they become the first French brigade to rout.  And that is, as they say, that. More attempts to rally from suppression follow.  The end of the turn. Now what? The deadline for orders has been extended to Tuesday 5pm GMT, as I have just become busy on Monday. (movements of runners and etc will be confirmed tomorrow, but everything went as planned) Numerology: 57 of your companies are no longer on the board as opposed to 73 German. Assuming 200 men per company, that's 26,000 men, although a lot of them have run away before they could be killed. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 02:46
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No, it was the 96th who charged and broke the Germans SE of Croissant, and the 98th following up behind who then fell charging boldly into the outskirts.
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Feb 19, 2017 03:59
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Runners and HQs update: The next update is planned to be four turns long. 6th Division HQ successfully arrived at Baguende and dispatched two runners to the 119th and 120th Brigades, who are now trying to change their orders and have failed once. 52nd Brigade dispatched a runner on being forced to retreat suppressed, which will arrive at Baguende on Turn 10. The brigade will not move after rallying without fresh orders. A Change of Orders will not take place until and unless BHQ rallies from suppression. 53rd Brigade dispatched a runner on opening fire, which arrived at Baguende on Turn 9. 54th Brigade dispatched a runner on Turn 6, which arrived on Turn 9. When routing it dispatched another, which will arrive on Turn 13. 55th Brigade dispatched a runner on Turn 6, which arrived on Turn 8. It is currently on Defend stance and may not move any companies. If it no longer has any enemy companies in range and does not receive a runner, it will attempt to fulfil its original orders and march on Baguette. No brigades are eligible for a Change of Orders, but brigadiers may give orders now in anticipation of receiving a runner in the next four turns. Brigades may give fresh orders in anticipation of receiving a runner in the next four turns. Division HQ currently has three runners available; a fourth may leave on Turn 11. 22nd Division HQ remains at Clemenceau. 96th Brigade's headquarters was killed while valiantly leading a charge near the Bois de Baguette. Its remaining companies, if able to do so, will break off in response to a Standing Order on turn 10 and switch to Defend stance; if they finish up within 8" of another BHQ I will roll to see if the companies can be added to its strength. If not, they will hold position and entrench and will not accept any further orders, although they are not suppressed (yet) and will defend themselves. 97th Brigade received a runner on Turn 8 and changed its orders. 99th Brigade received a runner on Turn 8. The whereabouts of its missing guns are still unknown, although some rather odd noises are floating down to you out of the Bois de Tigre. The Cavalry Brigade received a runner on Turn 8 and changed its orders. 22nd Division sent four runners out over the course of two turns and has one remaining. The one sent to 96th arrived in time to go down with the ship. No runners are currently heading towards HQ. No brigades are eligible for a Change of Orders, but brigadiers may give orders now in anticipation of receiving a runner in the next four turns. Reminder: soft deadline 5pm (GMT) this coming Tuesday, hard deadline when the adjudication begins, results to follow but possibly not until Wednesday afternoon, depending on circumstances. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 22:44
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A German aeroplane flies over General Mon Pere's chateau just as he is dressing for luncheon, and drops a brick with a note tied round it down one of the many chimneys. Once retrieved, the note reads:quote:Remember, men. We are here on the field to fight the greatest war of Europe's history, and we shall fight like our dignity and humanity compels us to. We shall fight with the bravery of the warriors of old, and the civility of the soldiers of the new. You reflect that what it lacks in earnestness compared to "Gott Mitt Uns", it makes up for in pithiness. There is no signature, but the handwriting is identified by your intelligence department as that of Generalleutnant Tevery Spitzehut Unhofflichmann Beste von Polieren. PS: Reminder that the deadline is tomorrow at 5pm GMT Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Feb 21, 2017 |
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Feb 21, 2017 00:38
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Also, do stop and defend orders mean you stop out of range just because you see somebody move on a hill 48" away? Those orders only kick in within unmodified spotting range.
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Feb 21, 2017 13:16
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The adjudication is now underway
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Feb 21, 2017 19:38
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Sixkiller posted:Général de brigade Sixkiller Yeah about that
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Feb 22, 2017 01:30
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n3sUWR4FV4 Turn 10: 1130 German initiative It's far from a good start to the turn for the 6th Division; the 52nd flees from some machine guns who aren't there any more, and the 120th successfully changes its orders and charges off down La Cote, with another runner from Baguende frantically and unsuccessfully chasing after them. The 119th, meanwhile, stays put again.  Another German brigade rather gormlessly wanders into range of the Clemenceau gun line; the 98th Division summons up the blood and charges into Saint Croissant!  German machine-guns open up on the charging 98th; over half of them never make it to the outskirts on the MG/08 account.  As the gun lines in the east take out one battery each, your guns on Clemenceau enjoy the turkey shoot, and the Cavalry Brigade expends all its firepower to take down just one German company, the combined rifles of three German brigades repel the entire 98th before it can reach the outskirts. Then it fails a morale check and routs, quite understandably.  It's bloody work for the 53rd in the north-east, but at least the 120th is coming to back them up!  Turn 11: 1200 French initiative The Cavalry Brigade withdraws from the fight as the 97th gets orders to about-turn and interdict the St Croissant road.  That German brigade west of Clemenceau gets a right royal shoeing.  They, of course, epic-fail their morale check and rout. Speaking of failed morale checks...the victim this time is the 53rd, which is forced to retreat suppressed. Don't worry, here comes the 120th! A runner reaches them, but whatever orders came out of Brigade HQ never got to the men.  The 55th is also starting to pull itself together after fleeing from that earlier bayonet charge.  The landscape is beginning to look suitably apocalyptic. Turn 12: 1230 German initiative The intensity of the battle is beginning to die down somewhat. Most of the men in the killing zones are either dead or fled as the Cavalry Brigade seizes Dejeuner Ridge and the peak of La Oeuf.  I'm pretty sure, in fact, that the fled outnumber the dead, though I haven't counted. The 119th got its new orders, by the way, and is now forming up as planned, right in time to see two German brigades waltzing up to it.  The 120th remains unable to change its orders, although it is able to survive a morale check and trade blows with what appears to be a highly-trained German formation.  The last remaining in-range units in the west are being picked off on both sides. Those four German FKs have really punched above their weight, compared to a French gun line on Clemenceau that now numbers about 10 soixante-quinze batteries. The sound of disgruntled horse coming out of the Bois de Tigre has died down, by the way.  And there's still one more turn to go...  Turn 13: 1300 French initiative Your cavalry finds this strange new German formation rather easier to deal with, at least for now.  Everyone is now at the end of their orders, or has switched to Defend stance, and does not move. More Geman artillery opens fire and causes casualties all over. General lenoon tries to rally his emotions around his shaking heart.  Two brigades' worth of machine guns absolutely rip through his men.  Seven dead companies, one failed morale check, and that's all she wrote east of Baguette. General lenoon makes a quiet departure from the field; a flea-bitten corporal suggests they both go to Paris and join the French Section of the Workers' International. The only other thing that happens is the 120th continuing to give as good as it gets against the Germans, succeed on morale checks, and forcing the enemy brigade to check (it passes, for once). And so, here we are.  It is a quarter past one, almost exactly halfway through the day. You have now lost 105 companies; the enemy has lost 119, and you have passed several morale checks while the enemy has whiffed on them. News of runners to follow tomorrow. Next deadline is 5pm GMT, Thursday 24 February. You may wish to know that all your brigades are currently on Defend stance. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Feb 22, 2017 |
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Feb 22, 2017 02:57
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my dad posted:
The General gives you a long lecture about the shortcomings of the older reservists. You wait patiently. You wait a long time. He then launches into an equally long woe-is-me tale of how there's trouble everywhere, and significant reinforcements have already been committed to other corps, but eventually admits that there is one green Reserve brigade close by which can be committed immediately and another which will arrive "before nightfall", although he is unable to give specifics on that just now. Before transferring you to his chief of staff to make the arrangements, he also says "and the Englishman, Field Marshal French - what a name, pah! - has apparently sent one of his Veteran brigades in the direction of Quatreprouts, which he says in his horrific mangling of our language should arrive in about three hours, either that or he requires multiple ladies of the night, and a liaison officer is on his way to you now." The green brigade will march onto the map on Turn 14 at any location shaded blue in your telephone map. It requires a commander and must be assigned to a divisional HQ. Would you like it to be artillery-focused, infantry-focused, or cavalry?
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Feb 22, 2017 09:32
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The new brigade is a green brigade with one machine-gun, one brigade commander, eight infantry companies, and three 75mm batteries. These batteries are not the 75mm batteries which absconded from Clemenceau, which you can expect to return at some point in the next update.
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Feb 22, 2017 17:48
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They both spot it. They would also both spot it if they were on the lower level and a friendly infantry chit advanced to within spotting range. I'm sure there are some situations where I'd go "actually they're in different brigades and not in touch enough for the lower chit to know that's there", but for the most part, they'll both spot it. Just be wary of extrapolating this one situation to wider circumstances, because like I say, I can think of situations where I'd be minded to rule "no, on this critical turn, this gun sees it, this gun doesn't". Loel posted:And my 155s? every time someone mentions them I roll D6 and add it to the number of turns remaining before they get back 
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Feb 22, 2017 |
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Feb 22, 2017 18:28
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As discussed in Roll20, the new, improved, undeniably grooved changing-your-orders mechanics: For the benefit of observers: I need to ditch the rules about runners because they take far too long to adjudicate and have confused some players. Nice idea, but too fiddly to be workable. Both Corps Commanders have agreed to the principle of a change, and I thank them for it. So, as of now (these are still open to minor tweaks): All updates will be 4 game turns in length. The Runner is abolished in all situations except one; a unit which reaches an objective must still dispatch a Runner to inform Corps Command. Divisional HQ has an aura of 30" (formerly the single-turn range of a Runner on a road). Any number of Brigadiers may attempt a Change of Orders while the game is stopped; it need not go into effect on the first turn after restarting. Whether or not the Change of Orders succeeds depends on a dice roll. Brigades who are in the following situations will find it more difficult to change their orders than other brigades; these conditions all stack if appropriate: If they are in combat when attempting to change orders If they are more than 30" from DHQ If their BHQ chit is more than 8" from a road which connects to DHQ without interruption by an enemy chit/any roadblock/barbed wire/other obstruction If more than two brigades attempt to change their orders on the same turn; two brigades may do so without penalty, but a third (and fourth, fifth, etc) take the penalty. The rule about BHQ needing to be within 8" of a road will be suspended for the next four turns in order to give Brigade Commanders time to reorder their formations without penalty, if they wish, to conform with the rule. Divisional Commanders must submit a list indicating which brigades have priority when attempting to change orders, otherwise I will do it for you and you may not like the result. The rules about telephone contact remain in effect with the following modification: brigades attached to a Divisional HQ which is out of telephone contact with Corps Command may only attempt to issue new orders on every 12th turn, not every 4th.
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Feb 22, 2017 19:46
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The new rules require Divisional commanders to set an order of priority for Brigades that attempt to change their orders I am prepared to cut you a little slack on this update, since I'm changing the rules in the middle of the battle, but note that in all updates going forward I must have a list from Divisional commanders telling me which brigades have priority when attempting to change their orders, even if only one or two are actually trying to change anything. It needs to look something like this and it must be separate from the part of your post which tells your brigades what to do: 96th Division 32nd Brigade, continue moving forward 33rd Brigade, turn west and secure [TOWN_NAME] 35th Brigade, retreat immediately 36th Brigade, halt, you are walking into a trap! 11th Cavalry, continue scouting ahead Changing orders 1st. 36th Brigade 2nd. 32nd Brigade 3rd. 11th Cavalry 4th. 33rd Brigade 5th. 35th Brigade If there is no order of priority I will choose it myself and you may not like the result. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Feb 23, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2017 14:00
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The adjudication begins... The adjudication is over: results post pending... Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Feb 23, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2017 18:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM Turn 14: 1330 French initiative The 97th successfully impresses the remnants of the 96th Brigade into its own service, and heads up Dejeuner Ridge.  In the East, everyone seems to have mutually agreed to back off.  The 175th Brigade arrives as reinforcement, and sidles onto the far West of the map, hoping that nobody's noticed them.  The German advance party runs boldly up that hill and scatters your cavalry!  When it comes to their lives, the arse hortillery is now operating in a strict "use it or lose it" basis.  Turn 15: 1400 French initiative The 120th pulls itself together, and the 97th steels itself for combat, its gunners sweating and puffing as they carry their pieces forward.  Your arse hortillery repels the charge, xthetenth adding his own fire to their efforts.  Two German brigades are now advancing on Dejeuner Ridge, it seems; the 97th opens fire and scores two suppressions.  Those Germans immediately attempt to rally, knowing it could be the difference between life and death.  Turn 16: 1430 French initiative The German general, his infantry marching, his MGs ready, his guns unlimbering.  Tias! When his men fell!  Jacques, his guns disabled, his heart stirred.  Mon Pere, reaching for the brandy. Turn 17: 1500 French initiative Two German brigades summon up the courage, stiffen the blood, and cry "Gott for Harald, Deutschland, und Kaiser Bill!"  The guns go off, your own are now ready to fire and kill a German 77. They respond, suppressing two of your 75 batteries; unfortunately I placed the suppression chits underneath them and then didn't notice and fix it until the end of the turn.  That second machine gun proves vital, repelling an extra enemy company.  Your rifle fire forces back yet more opponents, but there are too many of them to kill them all!  Their hortillery lying dead, your surviving arses fail a morale check and retreat suppressed; La Oeuf is German, at least for the moment! The 97th's right is overrun; companies flee before they can join the ranks of the dead.  A German brigade south of Dejeuner Ridge suddenly makes a break for Baguette and makes it mostly intact; your gun line only manages to kill one company and suppress another.  The overview. Control of Dejeuner Ridge could still go either way...  (PS: The missing 75s have returned to Clemenceau, covered in all the detritus of the forest, and will be deployed, unlimbered, on the board in positions that the 99th's commander will now indicate. The whereabouts of those 155s are still unknown, although not for much longer.) General Mon Pere nearly spills his brandy as the telephone rings. It's General Lyautey's chief of staff, who wishes to remind you that if you lose half of your remaining companies, the General will order the battle to be stopped. He also mentions that you may expect a BEF brigade to arrive at some point in the next four turns. He is apologetic that he cannot give you a more exact time, nor can he give any more precise report of their expected point of entry than "somewhere on Clemenceau Ridge". You have lost 117 companies. The enemy has lost 128. The next soft deadline is Saturday 25th at 5pm GMT.Special Supplementary Horticultural Update Your men at Clemenceau have completed trenches and gun-pits for themselves; its Engineer has used up its allotment of barbed wire and awaits further orders. Other units are currently entrenching at the following locations.    
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Feb 24, 2017 00:42
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